Owner prays for dead; says building was secured

Speaking publicly for the first time about the 1999 fire that destroyed the warehouse he owned and killed six Worcester firefighters, Ding On “Tony” Kwan said yesterday he prays twice daily for the men who died. He also maintained that a Fire Department inspection three days before the blaze showed the building was secured properly.

The Framingham developer, 62, broke his decade-long silence after the Telegram & Gazette published the second of a 6-day series looking back at the Dec. 3, 1999, fire. He called a reporter and provided the newspaper with a copy of an inspection report of the then-vacant Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. building.

“Three days before the fire, the Fire Department inspected the building: perfect,” Mr. Kwan said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Kwan expressed sadness about the firefighters and their families, but maintained that he did everything required to keep his property safe.

The sprawling brick edifice caught fire after two homeless people who broke in apparently knocked over a candle.

“I’m sorry it happened,” said Mr. Kwan, a Harvard University-trained architect and native of Hong Kong. “Like anything, like 9-11, what can you do? In the world, certain people don’t do the right thing.”

The two-page inspection report, dated Nov. 30, 1999, and signed by the late firefighter Lt. James Stolberg, was the record of a so-called “company” inspection performed by a ladder company as part of routine fire prevention duties.

It was submitted as an exhibit in a 2002 negligence suit brought by four of the firefighters’ widows against Mr. Kwan.

While the lieutenant filled out only two of 21 questions on the “In-Service & Familiarization Inspection Report,” he noted that the approaches to the building were clear and that all exits were boarded up or locked, except powerhouse windows that were broken.

Lt. Stolberg also reported that firefighters walked around the outside of the building and that he explained to his company what the interior looked like based on a previous inspection.

Deputy Fire Chief Timothy J. Gray, who has headed the department’s fire prevention program since the fatal blaze, said the inspection was a quick, cursory look at the outside of the century-old warehouse performed by a group of firefighters in a hurry.

The deputy chief also questioned whether the building was really secured well enough, and if Mr. Kwan had the warehouse checked frequently enough.

“He did an outside report. He couldn’t get inside,” Deputy Chief Gray said of the lieutenant’s inspection. “He did not go up to each door and each window. It looked secure from the outside.

“I would say there should have been more maintenance of him looking at the building,” he continued. “As far as he was concerned it was secure, but it wasn’t, was it?”

These days, the Fire Department uses a different form, but field companies still do similar spot inspections, as well as more in-depth ones, the deputy chief said.

What has been overhauled is the system of identifying and mapping the interiors of dangerous buildings, with a separate unit within the fire prevention division responsible for more complete inspections that are filed on computers and available to fire scene commanders, he said.

As for Mr. Kwan, he said he conformed to the standards of the era, but that today he follows stricter laws for the securing of abandoned buildings that have been put in place since the 1999 fire. The new rules require stronger materials to seal entrances and windows of vacant buildings to try to keep out intruders.

Mr. Kwan said he has a foreman who periodically checked the Cold Storage building on Franklin Street and the vacant industrial buildings he still owns that surround the property.

But “I don’t think anybody checked every day,” he said.

Ten years after the fire, Mr. Kwan explained that he has kept silent largely for cultural reasons. His Chinese heritage, he said, compelled him to keep his feelings to himself out of consideration for the dead and their families.

“For me, I need to respect them,” he said. “I never took any interviews after the fire out of respect. In my heart, if I talked I would not respect the people who passed away.

For the first time publicly, Mr. Kwan noted that he took the $900,000 proceeds from the city’s eminent domain taking of the warehouse property, added $100,000 to the sum and distributed $250,000 to each of the four widows with whom he settled the civil suit in 2003. He also said the widows each got another $250,000 from the insurance settlement.

“Why did I settle? Because of my heart,” he said.

Mr. Kwan also addressed the destruction by fire of the former Old Town Hall in Northboro.

The building, which Mr. Kwan bought in 1983, burned down two years later in a fire that local officials, as well as Mr. Kwan, have termed suspect.

Mr. Kwan provided documents showing that he took out a $2.8 million loan to reconstruct the building — which is now about half-occupied by various businesses, including a restaurant and a workout gym — but only carried $1.5 million in insurance on the building.